Are the folks who think we ought to arm some of the teachers in the public schools akin to “survivalists”. Well, one of my favorite commenters thinks so. He ended a comment on improving school security with these two paragraphs.

Figuring the odds, the costs, and the likelihood of real benefit, wouldn’t the survivalist be better off to spend their time and money preventing the apocalypse rather than preparing for it?

The reason that I bring this up is because the fear that drives the survivalist is similar to the fear that drives this school security debate. However, unlike the individual survivalist, we are talking about actions as a community that need to be rationally governed based upon the threat, the costs and the benefit so that scarce societal resources are spent most effectively to prevent the problem rather than to just react to it. I’m no expert, but the idea of arming and training hundreds of thousands of school teachers sounds irrationally out of whack to the threat, and it seems fraught with unintended consequences. Does it surprise you, however, that those lobbying to sell more guns and the politicians that they have bought and paid for have this as their favorite solution? (from here)

tsalmon‘s comparison of Conservative Second Amendment gun right defenders with survivalists is actually quite interesting. However, Liberal Democrats are not alone in doing this sort of thing. WMAL’s Chris Plante, for example, likes to compare Liberal Democrats to the Eloi. Who are the Eloi? There are a people plucked out of the fantasy of science fiction, specifically a novel by H. G. Wells, The Time Machine.

By the year AD 802,701, humanity has evolved into two separate species: the Eloi and the Morlocks, whereof the Eloi live a banal life of ease on the surface of the earth, while the Morlocks live underground, tending machinery and providing food, clothing, and inventory for the Eloi. The narration suggests that the separation of species may have been the result of a widening split between different social classes. Having solved all problems that required strength, intelligence, or virtue, the Eloi have slowly become dissolute and naive: they are described as smaller than modern humans, with shoulder-length curly hair, pointed chins, large eyes, small ears, small mouths with bright red thin lips, and sub-human intelligence. They do not perform much work, except to feed, play, and mate; and when Weena falls into a river, none of the other Eloi helps her (she is rescued instead by the Time Traveler). Periodically, the Morlocks capture individual Eloi for food; and because this typically happens on moonless nights, the Eloi are terrified of darkness. (from here)

Who are the bad guys in Wells novel? Supposedly, they are the Moorlocks. What is funny about calling these guy the villains is that the Moorlocks do all the work. Without them the Eloi could not survive, but H. G. Wells was, after all, a Socialist. Still, one can understand why the Eloi might dread being harvested for food. Yet like cattle, they do nothing to prevent it.

We can idealize the world. That is what the Eloi did in the world of H. G. Wells’ imagination. We can pretend the Moorlocks don’t exist. We can blissfully enjoy our lives until something bad happens, or we can figure out what needs to be done and do what we can to prevent bad things from happening.

As a matter of fact, some states are already arming teachers. Here are some articles on the subject.

When Donald Trump called for arming teachers in 2015, he was met with the expected derision from gun control advocates and other progressives. All proposals to arm teachers are met with similar derision by liberals who warn of the dangers of “militarizing” schools. While this chin dribbling continues, school shootings have increased to a point where 150,000 of our nation’s students have now experienced a school shooting or the threat of one.

In the recent Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Florida, the gunman actually used a school emergency action fire drill to lure his victims into the kill zone. It is time not only to permit teachers to be armed, but for the federal government to mandate that school districts take such actions in order to qualify for federal funding.

People opposed to arming teachers such as Kenneth Trump, president of the National School Safety and Security Services, argues that having police and school resource officers is preferable to arming teachers. In fact, the Stoneman school security officer was one of the first fatalities. The reality is that most shooters plan their actions months in advance and figure out how to avoid or neutralize school security. (continued here)

Does the survivalist model seem too extreme? Would the senseless apathy of the Eloi model be even more intolerable? Well, I don’t recommend copying either model too rigidly, but arming those school teachers who are willing and able seems to be a practical option for protecting children in school.

What do we do about something more apocalyptic? Well, there are some real apocalyptic possibilities out there, and prevention does sound like a great idea. If only we could convince the Eloi that Global Warming is not real and Moorlocks are real…..

65 thoughts on “THE ELOI PARTY?”

Questions to Republican politicians from the mother who lost her child to rapid fire, large magazine weapons of war at a school shooting or in Las Vegas: “How can the government let this happen? Why didn’t you fix this problem since the last time before my baby got harmed?

You: “Democrats hate children. Just look at abortion. Let’s talk about abortion, and let’s talk about selling more guns.”

Mother: Tears and then anger. Lots of anger.

The most important purpose of government is to provide security. Republicans are failing and rather than be serous, all you want to do is complain about the other side. People are tired of the endless bickering, deflecting and demagoguery.

1. anon presented you the stats. Gun crime is at a statistical low.
2. Democrats turned the schools in to gun free, unprotected zones. After that the school shootings started.
3. Some school system have already started arming teachers. The Feds don’t even have to have a role in this.
4. Government had ample opportunity to stop Cruz using EXISTING laws. It did not do its job.
5. The Democrats don’t have a solution. They just have an incentive to do what they always do, blame somebody else, demand more power, and still not fix anything.

I asked you what Democrats have done that actually was for the children. You started blaming large magazines and bump stocks. Obama did not attempt to regulate bump stocks, and that is the Republicans fault. Most people have never even heard of the damn things. Why don’t you answer the question. What have Democrats done for children that actually was for children? Did what they do actually help children or just result in hiring more government employee union members?

“You started blaming large magazines and bump stocks. Obama did not attempt to regulate bump stocks, and that is the Republicans fault. Most people have never even heard of the damn things.”

Yes, but we sure knew what they were after Vegas when the killer could spray hundreds of bullets into s tightly packed and unawares concert crowd of young people knowing that virtually every bullet would find someone’s flesh and bone. I know, bump stacks don’t kill people, people kill people. Bump stocks combined with automatic weapons just allow an insane or malevolent terrorist to kill lots and lots of people and injure even more. And what did a Republican President and a Republican Congress in thrall to the NRA do about bump stocks once we became tragically aware of them? Big surprise! Nothing. Because Republicans care so much about children? Give me a break Tom.

You are being emotional. You don’t have a solution. You have a rant. Politics doesn’t produce instant solutions. It barely works at all.

Government failed in Florida because people like you expect too much of it. Government failed in Florida because for too many politics is about how their knee jerks. Think. Then act. That usually works better, but it takes more time and effort.

“More and more Americans are tired of witnessing the death of children.”

May I just say something a bit harsh here? No we’re not! We are perfectly content to totally ignore the death of children with complete indifference. We care very little about the thousands being aborted before they are born. We look the other way when we see the opioid epidemic and we care very little for for all those over dose death deaths, hundreds of thousands of them. We hardly even care about the kids being murdered on our streets in cities with some of the strictest gun control laws in our country.

We are NOT tired of witnessing the death of children. Many of us flat out don’t care. That is the harsh truth. What we really care about is virtue signaling our own goodness by coming up with harebrained solutions that can’t even be bothered to take the time to understand the nature of the problem.

You miss the point (and I’m not talking about the one on the top of my head). You outrage over the supposed liberal media as “muck rakers”, but you meekly excuse the constant lying and adolescent name calling of the ultimate muck-raker-in-chief. And you don’t even address the Trumped Up News Channel or the Alt Right outlets that Trump actively solicits. You live in a made up dystopia of “alternate truths” and false equivalencies.

This constant whining is not credible at this point. It is the deflection and the whining of those who are obviously losing an argument. It is the childishly desperate lament of “I know you are, but what am I?”.

More and more Americans are tired of witnessing the death of children. They see NRA promoted asinine schemes that just happen to enrich gun sellers, that pander to the worst inclinations of an increasingly hate inspired base, and that just make the situation increasingly worse instead of better. We are tired of these old hackneyed refrains and we are crying BS.

And this is just one aspect of an uprising that very well might see a wave in the midterms. Good luck with the blame game. People increasing want real change, and if the Democrats don’t make progress, then maybe it’s time for a third party and the demise of one or both of the current two.

“You miss the point (and I’m not talking about the one on the top of my head). You outrage over the supposed liberal media as “muck rakers”, but you meekly excuse the constant lying and adolescent name calling of the ultimate muck-raker-in-chief. And you don’t even address the Trumped Up News Channel or the Alt Right outlets that Trump actively solicits. You live in a made up dystopia of “alternate truths” and false equivalencies.” (bolding added, as it demonstrates the point.

I cannot speak for anyone else…but I think the point is the “liberal” media presents itself as a legitimate source of unbiased information. Alex Jones does not.
If CNN aspires to be nothing more than a mirror image of Alex Jones with a left-wing slant, and are up front this is their shtick, there is no problem. But they aren’t. They are claiming to be a trustworthy neutral gatekeeper institution.
THAT is the problem.

When have the members of the press not been politically biased? When have the members of the military not been politically biased?

This is a little off topic, but it goes to the cynicism that particularly pervades here and that this post demonstrates. The analogy of professional military and professional press is not exact, but there are commonalities. People may be partisan, but when we are talking about necessary democratic institutions like the military and the press we measure them by their professionalism, and how they further their respective roles within the constitutional democracy, not by the partisan leaning of the individual professionals. You can say that, if they are professionals, their partisan tendencies should be irrelevant, but you’d have to be naive to think that it never matters.

For the press, their institutional role is transparency. There will always be disputes over where and how the press focuses their spotlight. However, the real question of press credibility for any given organization is whether that organization professionally protects their credibility for presenting the truth, and whether they correct the record when they find that they have stated a falsehood. Obviously, some press is unrepentantly partisan (such as Fox News and MSNBC), and that’s fine, as long as we know it from the get go. Active partisanship is one thing and fabricating stories and conspiracies is another. And that’s where we get to false equivalences.

Criticizing CNN or WAPO or WSJ or NYT for editorializing overmuch in what they claim to be just factual news is valid.
But Donald Trump has essentially declared war on the truth, and in so doing, he declared war on the professional press, including many organizations, like the WSJ that would be traditionally considered a conservatively biased, but professionally credible journalisic organizations. When a president and his Party declare war on the facts and the truth, then it’s not surprising that a free press declares war back. And for the sake of our Democracy, you should that hope they continue to do so.

Remember, Donald Trump could have just as easily came out of nowhere on a wave of Democratic populism to become President. The man has no real ideology (except promoting himself) and no real ideals. He panders to his far Right to keep them outraged and to discipline the Republican moderates who are disgusted by the corruption that Trump oozes everywhere. But Trump could just as easily have been doing the same thing to the Left right now had he chose to go Democrat instead of Republican. You and Tom may have voted for Trump only because you were ideologically against Clinton, but the blue collar voters that actually put Trump over the top in the electoral college voted for Trump the populist, not Trump the ideological partisan, and would have voted for the same scoundrel even if he had run as a Democrat. If Trump had won as a Democratic Populist and was the same lying and smearing nepotistic corrupt “con man” that he is now, but he was pandering for a greater welfare state to keep his far left on board, wouldn’t you hope that a free press, as well as all the other institutions of our democracy, would be holding a spot light on Trump’s incompetence, lying and corruption?

So let’s quit confusing the difference between truth and ideology. Let’s quit mistaking some utopian ideal of a perfect partisan neutral press with what is outright propaganda, false conspiracy spreading and fabrication. Like Trump, Alex Jones is a megalomaniac, not a pressional and credible press professional. To create a false equivalency between Jones and CNN is to give in to the worst sort of corrupting cynicism. You are better than that.

I predict that eventually you and Tom will reach a tipping point where, no matter how much you hate the Democrats, you just cannot, for the sake of our democracy, accept Trump’s corruption any longer. I’m surprised that has not happened already, except for the blinding cynicism.

Small disclaimer, I have a major event I have to MC in a week and have been running around. But unfortunately, when I get into a debate it stays in the back of my mind until I finally post it out. I need to unload this so I can get on with the event planning so apologies if this is a little rough, I don’t have much time, but I also know by next week things will have moved on so I want to respond now:

“When have the members of the press not been politically biased? When have the members of the military not been politically biased?
This is a little off topic, but it goes to the cynicism that particularly pervades here and that this post demonstrates. The analogy of professional military and professional press is not exact, but there are commonalities. People may be partisan, but when we are talking about necessary democratic institutions like the military and the press we measure them by their professionalism, and how they further their respective roles within the constitutional democracy, not by the partisan leaning of the individual professionals. You can say that, if they are professionals, their partisan tendencies should be irrelevant, but you’d have to be naive to think that it never matters.”

The difference is, we hold our military accountable and expect professionalism. By contrast, we hold the media to no account and their role no longer seems to be informing the public. Professionalism?!? Truly?

….I haven’t heard so many unverifiable statements from ostensibly private exchanges since grade school. And back then only little girls did it. We are, seriously, honest to God, back to “She said you’re ugly!” “She also said she doesn’t like you!” That’s our media.
Except worse…it’s all televised. “Hey, Jill (Jill in this case a random person in Somalia) did you know that Katie said you live in a craphole?” (runs to different countries interviewing different people. Even when he supports legislation they would otherwise agree with, it’s, “Trump calls those who are afraid of the NRA sissies!” “See DPRK bevy of beauties! Kim Jong Un’s sister gets miss congeniality award!” followed by “Ivana shouldn’t have been there! She’s not qualified! Kelly said so in a private room!”

This is the kind of stuff I get on my home page that they call “news” these days, from CNN, et al. I don’t read Alex Jones so I can’t comment knowledgably but assuming it is both unsubstantiated and highly specious….well, what exactly is the difference? When was this type of thing ever headline news before? I mean, they did speak about “Michele Obama’s fierce new haircut!” but none of it seemed purposely intended to seriously undermine the Executive in the eyes of the public.

Have you noticed participants on tv may have more window dressing but rarely bring any more professionalism anymore? There are no Walter Cronkites. Authentic people talking honestly about a subject because they are concerned have retired. They are sitting grimly watching on with a bottle of scotch in their hand. There was a time when opinion was left to opinion articles (called editorials). Not so now, it’s all “news”, packaged as clickbait.
Our nation is diverging into two discrete strands of groups that do not appear to have much in common with one another, lack understanding of one another, and do not even share an understanding of what constitutes an objective fact and where to find such things.

Democrats care about children? Can you name anything that Democrats have done that actually was for the children? Does aborting them by the millions work? How about slavery? How about encouraging them to sneak into the USA?

My point is we are fighting because you don’t have a plan I think will work. The schools are already “gun free”. It is the “gun free” places that are most likely to become targeted by gunmen.

Government is not usually a good solution. When people who have already come up with bad ideas want to fix their mistakes by doing more of the same, what is the point of doing what they suggest? So we can call each other names?

“When the folks at CNN start feeding off of a tragedy the way they have this one, I get my back up, and I see no reason to apologize. The way they have exploited the ‘survivors’ and the parents of the victims is shameless.“

Trump’s favorite blogger, Alex Jones, says the Sandy Hook child killings were faked, and that the parents were paid actors. He has said that the Florida shooting were the same.

“Trying blame the NRA is just sick.”

The dear leader of your Republican Party used to call your favorite Republican primary candidate “lying Ted” and aluded that Cruz’ Dad help kill JFK. He does this sophomoric crap constantly.

Your outrage is so amazingly selective. Everyone is picking on the poor NRA? Seriously? The mothers of child victims are unsympathetic to NRA calls for inaction and Republican pleas that nothing can be done? Huh? Parents bury the bullet ridden bodies of their babies, and you expect to sooth them with the “guns don’t kill people” or deflecting the blame from anywhere but the sale of those profitable war weapons of mass slaughter?

The NRA isn’t calling for inaction, you just don’t agree with the action they are calling for. Calling for concealed weapons in gun free zones (noting, the person with the weapon has chosen to violate the gun free policy) to allow concealed carry is not new nor is it exclusive to Trump or the NRA. Talking about dead bodies doesn’t sway that opinion, because, you see, most of these events are stopped by people brandishing other weapons. And lives are saved. How often is a mass shooter thwarted by another person’s bullet and forensic experts determine later it would have been better it that person wasn’t armed? See the Utah mall incident in 2007. See the 2009 Ft Hood shooting. See the Beslan massacre for a real look at how bad things can turn out.

-One of the things they (those experts you’ve mentioned) learned from Columbine is to not await the SWAT team but step into action immediately.

I don’t spend any time reading Alex Jones. So I don’t know what he said. Does Trump believe Sandy Hook child killings were faked, and that the parents were paid actors? Yet you are trying to insinuate he does or what?

Trump is what he is. Perfect? Never said he was? Am I? Are you? Then why don’t you just talk about the issues? Save the hyperbolic gibberish. You don’t have a solution. That’s the issue.

“I should add, tsalmon, since you were in on the groundwork for the air marshall program the deference aspect is something I’d think you’d understand. They don’t mandate air marshalls on every flight.”

I was involved with the Federal Flight Deck Officer Program, not the Federal Air Marshall program, but I get your point.

Deterrence was the prime purpose of the FFDO program, but beyond that the differences between school security and flight deck security are vast. It’s like the difference between defending room in a house verses defending a whole city complex from attack. The ability to control the environment and access is apples and apple groves.

A debate of those differences between two ignorant civilians might be entertaining, but also not very enlightening, helpful, or likely to matter.

As citizen, taxpayer voters, we have a right to expect, after so many deaths and injuries of innocents, that our policy makers would come up with incremental solutions that lowers the threat, the injuries and the deaths. We have a right to expect them to listen to real experts whose main motivation is to protect and serve the public, not to make money off our worst fears and blind ideological and partisan impulses. We have a right to have their policies informed by our desires and needs rather than who stand to make money and by their desire to get re-elected by spewing demagoguery and “guns don’t kill” illogic in support of those monied interests.

You don’t have to be a “stable genius” like the Trumpster to recognize that that is not what is happening here and that that is not what has happened for the past several decades. To say that the NRA is the heart of the problem and not the solution is to just see what is so obvious you have to be willfully blind not to see it. Even a high school kid can out-articulate the most deflecting, excuse ridden politicians and cry bullshit. And that’s what they are doing. From the mouths of babes….

What is happening right now is news media circus. We should all be insisting that our leaders act thoughtfully. Instead we risk allowing both ourselves and our leaders into hasty, but stupid decisions.

The only role the Feds should have in gun matters relate largely to interstate commerce issues and defining what gun rights as a minimum are required to satisfy the Second Amendment. That’s is what Congress and the Supreme Court can do profitably. Otherwise, the Feds tend to make of mess of it. Lots of sound and fury and fundraising, but they don’t do anything but make matters worse.

I don’t know what the solutions are. If you want to have my stupid opinion, then sure, local might be better than national and private might be better than governmental. But there are also certain regulations that must be national because you can easily see that otherwise we all suffer from the problems of the lowest common denominator. And public incentives, especially when it comes to common security, are not always the same as private profit based incentives. I’m not smart enough to know what will work and what won’t, but you have to at least start with the idea the incremental progress is possible. And that’s where we come back to cynicism verses optimism.

We each may not know the best, most cost effective solutions, many of the best of which may not have anything to do with gun control, but we can and must have a reasonable expectation that this can be improved and lives can be saved. I agree with what you said about a knee jerk reaction, but if history is our guide, then there is less danger of that than the likelihood that the can will be kicked down the road to the next batch of kids who will die. What we need as citizens is a persistent demand for effective improvement, and to hold our politicians accountable for inaction. If all they can say is asinine platitudes like “guns don’t kill people” or “there is no way to prevent this” then it’s time for us to call BS and it’s time for them to go.

We don’t define what is rational or what is progress quite the same way, and the notion of the Federal Government coming up with anything that is cost effective is just plain absurd.

When the folks at CNN start feeding off of a tragedy the way they have this one, I get my back up, and I see no reason to apologize. The way they have exploited the “survivors” and the parents of the victims is shameless. Trying blame the NRA is just sick. Effectively, gun control advocates keep insisting that gun rights advocates don’t care, and they do. Bullshit! We just have different ideas about how to solve the problem.

Look at what happened with respect to that latest school shooting. Government failed at every level. We had multiple opportunities to stop that killer, and nothing was done. The more we find out the worst that failure appears to be. It was not just one deputy who failed to enter the school when the shooting was in progress. We now know it was four.

Interesting article. My spouse went to high school in Broward county. We used to joke that if we had to take our sons there, we hoped they could get into the right gang. As luck would have it, he ended up being stationed there for a time. We decided to live an hour away on the Islands instead. Long commute for him, but worth it.
At any rate, just read that Utah teachers have had concealed carry in their schools since 2006. Perhaps they are experts we should consult on the matter?

“I don’t think you understand how a gun works. Weapon do not kill. Guns do not murder anyone. The man whose finger pulls a trigger kills.”

Actually, you are wrong Tom. Bullets kill people, not guns. 😏

This is the most asinine argument of all. Under this stupid theory, atom bombs, biological and chemical weapons don’t kill people either. No, people kill people. So we should do nothing to prevent the manufacture and use of these weapons?

And now the discussion turns from endless uninformed speculation into just the theater of the absurd.

Let’s see. This evening I will be going out. I could trip. I could bang my little noggin on the curb of the street. Since it is made of cement and very hard, it kills me! Murder! Mayhem! A criminal street curb.

Do you think the police will arrest the curb of the street? Do you think a judge and jury will convict and execute it?

Look up the story of Cain and Abel. Abel blood cried out to God for what Cain had done, not what his weapon had done. Even if Cain beat Abel to death with his fists, it was Cain who committed murder, not his hand.

The reason people are terrorized by terrorist events (mass shootings included in that category)***
are they feel a lack of control. True, one might be 100000 (or whatever) more likely to be injured in a car accident than terrorist attack and/or by a random shooter. But one has much more control when their hands are on the driving wheel. That’s why terrorism by plane crash is a particularly effective method…many people already feel like they have no control when they are up in the sky. Firearms make people feel like they have some control over events. They actually have the option to fight back when attacked. The need for this will vary depending on one’s perspective and personal experiences. That’s why people look toward arming the defenseless in situations like this. It’s not the evil arms industry coupled with evil politicians who wish harm on the population so they can fill their pockets with dollars.

***I should add here “terrorist” applies in this context whether the actions are officially terrorist, by political definition, or not. “Going postal” is not official terrorism but the psychology is the same so that’s what I am referring to. Terrorism as defined is about causing harm for political change, and the reason it is done almost entirely on democratic populations is because in a democracy people have some options…not so in a dictatorship.

One more post ’cause I feel chatty.
Prophylactic measures designed to calm the population aren’t ipso facto “irrational”.
Post 911 we had F15s doing sorties over the CONUS for weeks. At gianormous expense. They weren’t really doing anything but calming the population by making them feel some sense that someone (the “good guys”) were in control.

The main instance that came to mind when I brought up “hesitation” was Bush’s reaction when he was told about the attacks. Caught on film. My Pet Goat was played over and over as the masses scoffed at his incompetence. Obviously a real leader would have sprung into immediate action! It would really suck to be president. I can’t think of a worse job. I give the person in that position a lot of benefit of the doubt, and always have. I did for Obama, and I did for Bush.

“You believe he based this decision on conferring with the major gun manufacturers within hours after the tragedy? Or did he confer with them in advance in their Dr Evil tower to make use of any school shooting in the future? Perhaps Cruz is actually on the payroll.”

Ha! No, I think it is Trump’s natural instinct is toward pandering to the worst fears of his base rather than toward rational, incremental, expertise based change. But it is no accident that this scheme also will also make money for his gun selling contributors. No evil conspiracies – just good ole fashion fear mongering demagoguery and corruption.

Look at the news media. Look at how they rant about the NRA. Why doesn’t all that slander and libel stick? They are enough people in the NRA who know better, and they are all over the country.

Look at the news media and Democrat politicians. What happens every time we have a mass killing? More people watch the news. Politicians start ranting about gun control. Ratings and political donations go up, but do we ever get any practical solutions out of the news media or Democrats? And yet you have the audacity to blame the NRA and gun manufacturers? Those guys control the debate? They own the solution?

The NRA is not controlling the debate. Trump is not doing it either. The news media is controlling the debate. The NRA does not have anywhere near the amount money you act like it has. What the NRA has is enough members to get the public’s and the establishment’s attention. That is it, and there is nothing wrong with that.

I don’t really think that you understand how political power works if you think the NRA has not controlled the debate. Look at the obvious.

We have one mass shooting after another and yet since Columbine, we have more guns out there of more lethality than ever before. Just recently, Congress passed and the President signed into law that people who Social Security seemed mentally incompetent so as to receive benefits can now pass the gun background check. Do you think that the mentally incompetent lobby was pushing for this?

Right now there is a bill floating through Congress supported by the NRA that would have every state have to recognize the concealed weapons standards of weakest state law in the Union. Where is the experimentalistic federalism in that?

Nothing reasonable gets passed despite most Americans and even most NRA members favoring reasonable gun regulation. Yet the ATF and the Centers for Disease Control are legally banned from even collecting data that could be used to rationally formulate those regulations. Why? Money, money, money, money.

Once again, out of all the reasonable recommendations for incrementally reducing gun violence in school, do you really think it is an accident that the NRA is pushing and that Trump supports the one that sells more guns?

Don’t be naive. If more guns were the answer to the violence that having more guns causes then the problem would be getting better, not worse.

I don’t think you understand how a gun works. Weapon do not kill. Guns do not murder anyone. The man whose finger pulls a trigger kills.

If want to stop that finger from pulling the trigger, you have to stop the man.

Instead of focusing on the problem, the man pulling the trigger, you blame guns. And then you tell me I don’t understand power? That’s funny.

Do I support the NRA’s bill? Not really. For the most part, I think states should be regulating such matters and using reciprocal agreements. However, both Democrats and Republicans abuse Federal power. Nothing new, and it doesn’t make the NRA some kind of demon.

Trump wants to arm 20 percent of the nstion’s school teachers. Forget about whether this rationally makes sense or not. Forget about the amazing and almost unpredictable unintended consequences of such a vast federal proposal. Forget the federalist principles inconsistencies. Neither you nor I are qualified to have any but the most uninformed opinions. It’s ridiculous for us to even constantly speculate on the endless details and multifarious ramifications something so complex (but that never stops us does it?). Just observe the obvious. Just follow the money.

We are taking about hundreds of thousands of newly armed citizens, and upwards of a billion dollars in new gun and ammunition sales. We are taking about militarizing schools. Maybe it will work to some degree and maybe it won’t. Maybe the unintended consequences will makes a bad situation incredibly worse. What experts are pushing this? What data are they basing it on? How much serious thought has gone into its formulation? Who knows? But you really just have to look at the amazing costs (which will be paid by somebody) of such a vast program and then look at who benefits from the profits to know that the idea is facially corrupt to its very core.

“Trump wants to arm 20 percent of the nstion’s school teachers. Forget about whether this rationally makes sense or not. Forget about the amazing and almost unpredictable unintended consequences of such a vast federal proposal.”

He actually said he would leave it up to the states. That doesn’t sound like either a federal proposal nor mandate. Furthermore, I think he said only teachers who were well trained would apply. I think 20 percent is a really “optimistic” number. His actual words in the original tweet were “up to 20 percent”. If someone tells you “up to twenty percent of people can do X” does the lawyer in you immediately translate that to mean “20 percent must do X”? I’m curious because I’m not a lawyer, but I definitely don’t interpret the statement that way. The media does though.

FWIW, I think it would ambitious to even have 2 teachers who were proficient enough with firearms to qualify. But the point isn’t for teachers to actually be armed, the point is for this to act as a deterrent to potential shooters so they would never have to use it. And as a deterrent to someone who wants to shoot up a school, the more they think they are up against the better. I agree 20 percent probably shouldn’t be armed (there are only a handful of teachers I know who would fit in that category and all were prior military).

Words From The Past

When I left him, I reasoned thus with myself: I am wiser than this man, for neither of us appears to know anything great and good; but he fancies he knows something, although he knows nothing; whereas I, as I do not know anything, so I do not fancy I do. In this trifling particular, then, I appear to be wiser than he, because I do not fancy I know what I do not know. — Socrates (from here)

“I hope we once again have reminded people that man is not free unless government is limited. There’s a clear cause and effect here that is as neat and predictable as a law of physics: as government expands, liberty contracts.” Ronald Reagan.